


Common Language Infrastructure

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, No really they're smarter than that, Sherlock and Mycroft are geniuses, Speculation, Spoilers, and Moriarty has his reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you listened to their conversations, you'd never know what they were really saying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Common Language Infrastructure

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for pretty much all of Series Two. A lot of personal speculation on what was going on behind the scenes. While I quite enjoyed Series Two, I had some serious issues about some of the underlying structures/premises/giant-freaking-MacGuffins. You can probably figure them out from what I've written here.The framework for this fic was suggested by reading ISO 23271, so it probably makes no sense. Be afraid. You could consider this fic related to "When We Were Very Young," but you don't have to read that one to understand this one (insofar as this one is comprehensible to anyone). In addition, this fic was written to fill not one, not two, but three different prompts:  
> \- the open-ended theme of betrayal and forgiveness/reconciliation  
> \- "Knives out" said the brother  
> \- Anything that shows the Holmes brothers' relationship in a positive light (bonus points if you make this work for BBC)

 

  


_Abstract_ :

If anyone had been monitoring the conversation – and Mycroft always assumed he was being monitored by someone, even if it was just his own staff – they would have been privy to half an hour of first-rate petulant sniping (Sherlock’s) and resigned, reasoned remonstrance (his). In other words, a fairly typical encounter between the Holmes brothers, as part of their irregular schedule of Tuesday tête-a-têtes (irregular in that Sherlock did not always attend; the time was religiously blocked out on Mycroft’s calendar, to be pre-empted by only the most severe national or international crises).  

Nothing of consequence was ever said at these meetings. Mycroft would try to bring Sherlock to a sense of responsibility, or express concern about his welfare; Sherlock would snub the former, reject the latter, and make cutting remarks about Mycroft’s appearance and overall pettiness.

At least, that is how it appeared. And that is exactly what the Holmes brothers intended.

  


_Common Architecture:_

It began, as so many things in their lives did, as an exercise. A challenge in speaking in code, not only to ensure that their messages were incomprehensible to anyone but themselves, but conveyed in such a way as to go unnoticed by any listeners, especially their parents.  This proved more difficult than they had anticipated. Their first attempt, based on the base 16 hexadecimal approximation of pi, drew a disapproving frown from Mummy and a vaguely interested look from Father.

“Mycroft, dear, poorly-constructed and grammatically convoluted sentences might be fashionable with young men these days, but please remember that properly-constructed and precise sentences are preferred in this house. Particularly when speaking English,” said Mummy. She gave her eldest son a small, warm smile. “If you wish to be whimsical, try being so in French, Italian, or Cantonese.”

“The application has some merit, but is really far more suited for a written message, not a spoken conversation, and the message would be easily discovered through basic analysis,” said Father, before fixing his dreamy eyes on Sherlock. “And you missed an eight, my boy. It is 3.243F6A8885A308D31319, not 3.243F6A885A308D31319.”

Grand-mere laughed, beamed proudly at both her grandsons, and suggested trying something based on the complete works of Moliere. After all, it had worked for a particularly notorious and successful cell in the Resistance.

Family dinners in the Holmes household were rather more challenging than most, even when things were relatively quiet. Over the next few months, they were anything but, as Mycroft and Sherlock repeatedly attempted – and failed – to devise some method that would allow them to pass messages undetected by their elders.

The eventual answer – and the perfect method – lay in the unique nature of the brothers’ perfect memories and methods of retrieval. It was Mycroft who first envisioned his mind as a library (Sherlock, not to be outdone, made his a palace), but it was Sherlock who had the breakthrough flash of intuition about how they could use their similar way of categorizing and visualizing data into an unique, unbreakable code system. Family anecdotes were often incomprehensible to anyone outside of them. How much better, then, when a simple reference to an experience only the two of them shared also communicated what reference to recall, what method to use, in any given conversation?

And so the foundations were laid.

  


_Metadata:_

The real conversation, hidden in between the insults, the condescending remarks, and the ever-so-polite requests for civility, was quite different.

“What happened, Mycroft? You had us under Level-Three surveillance. How did _he_ grab John without your knowing?”

“I told you my position was being challenged when I came to you about the thumb drive. John’s monitoring level was questioned as an unreasonable expense and downgraded pending further review twelve hours before the kidnapping. And the flags I set up to alert me of any such changes were circumvented.”

“So _he_ is after us both, then.”

“Naturally. To target one brother, he would have to neutralize or eliminate the other. Don’t be obvious, Sherlock.”

“Don’t be careless, Mycroft. Assumptions are dangerous.”

The real conversations were often as peppered with insults as the covering ones. But neither brother failed to observe the concern, the worry, underlying the taunts, even though it was undetectable by anyone else.

“He’ll make another move soon, against one or both of us.”

“Yes.”

“Your friend is a liability. A vulnerable point.”

“John saved my life.”

“Yes.”

  


_Instruction Set:_

Even expecting it, the double-pronged attack of The Woman came as a surprise, if only because of its sheer blatancy. A request from on high for Mycroft to bring in Sherlock, the international machinations, the presence of the antagonistic Americans, not to mention the unsubtle lure of The Woman herself?

There was hardly any need to refer to their mutual cataloguing system to define this:  _obvious_. But the background maneuvering was much more subtle, so much so, that Sherlock attended an unprecedented third Tuesday meeting in a row.

“His network must be immense. Pressure is being brought to bear in a dozen ways, but without any clear connections between them.”

“There must be at least two independent agents within the shadow ministry.”

“I know. We’re going to have to pretend to be fooled. The both of us. Draw them out.”

“That puts you at great risk, Mycroft.”

“It puts us both at risk. But if you are seen to betray me, even accidentally, it might give us an opening. It might even give us leverage we need to turn Adler.”

“She would be an invaluable ally.”

“Dear brother. Was John correct in worrying about the state of your heart?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Your heart is at risk, brother mine. The attacks at 221B demonstrate that. He knows where your loyalties lie, and he sees them as weaknesses. You know where this might lead. Are you prepared to risk them, as well?”

“I can protect them. And I do not have a heart.”

“Of course not. Be careful.”

  


_Library Overview:_

The gambit with The Woman came to a head, as they had planned and intended. Convinced she had won, Adler made her mistake, and never realized she had been double-teamed by the brothers from the start.

Sherlock had agreed to ‘rescue’ Adler as part of earning her gratitude and cooperation. He had _not_ agreed to Mycroft setting John a test.

“I had to, Sherlock.”

Stubborn silence, with nothing meant in the words but the insults anyone could overhear.

“You told me yourself. John lied to you, as I had asked him to. To protect you.”

“Don’t repeat the obvious.”

“I shouldn’t have to. He cannot lie, Sherlock. Not well enough to play this game with you. You saw it yourself.”

“He is loyal.”

“He is a liability. You cannot bring him into this. Not any more than he already is. You should drive him away.”

“No.”

“Not even to save his life?”

  


_Debugging_ :

Mycroft had rarely seen Sherlock as visibly upset as he was after returning from Baskerville. And that was before he gave him his news.

“I tried, Mycroft. I tried as hard as I could to drive him away. I even drugged him, for God’s sake. Gave a PTSD soldier an unknown compound designed to induce terror and paranoia.”

Even Mycroft was surprised by the reference he found to convey the swearing he desperately wanted to say aloud, directly, and to Sherlock’s face.

“I agree entirely. It was an unforgivable error. _And he forgave me anyway_. I didn’t even ask. Not properly.” The ragged sigh Sherlock voiced was every bit as appropriate to the conversation any listener could understand as it was to their private talk. “He won’t leave me, Mycroft. He is more loyal than you can possibly imagine.”

“He is your friend.”

“Yes.”

There was nothing more to say to that, but it made Mycroft’s news that much heavier. “We captured him. He meant for it to happen. It’s worse than we thought.”

“Tell me.”

“He’s terminally ill, Sherlock. He has literally nothing to lose. He is focused entirely on one thing.”

“Me. Us. Destroying the world, once he is no longer here to enjoy it.”

“Yes. Mostly you, and destruction.”

“Why haven’t you eliminated him, then?”

“You know very well. His network. And my reach has been curtailed. My every move is under scrutiny. And unfortunately, unlike Louis XIV, ‘ _après-moi, le deluge_ ’ is not an euphemism.”

“It’s his goal.”

“One we must prevent.”

“You intend to give me to him, then. Use me as the bait you need. Queen’s sacrifice.”

“I will not sacrifice you.”

A sharp look, missing nothing. “You will, if you must. You will betray me and everything else. He must be stopped, Mycroft. “

“I know.”

Unasked, unanswered, the question haunted them both afterwards: Will you forgive me for this?

  


_Sample Program:_

The meeting was hurried, nothing like their usual Tuesdays, but they still spoke to each other underneath the cover of other words. The habit was ingrained, and the risks now too great to do otherwise.

“The trial failed.”

“We knew it would.”

“Yes, but you played right into his hands, Sherlock!”

“I had to. I have to stop him.”

“At least two powerful members of the shadow ministry are convinced that this ‘code threat’ is real.”

“Then they’re idiots. Computers don’t work that way. People do. Networks of people do. _His_ network does.”

“Technologically ignorant, but very influential. And I cannot act against them, not openly. Not now. Nor against the press.”

“I work best on my own in any case.”

“Not quite alone.”

“Not yet.”

Mycroft looked at him sharply. “My increasing disgrace – and your notoriety – is helping expose the agents in the ministry and in the official government. I should have enough evidence to bring down that part of the network within a week. Sooner, perhaps.”

“You cannot bring them down until we have enough to bring them all down, or at the very least cripple the network. You know what will happen if we don’t.”

“You might not have a week, Sherlock.”

The mulish look was open, as were the words. “I will do what I must. You can’t stop me.”

Mycroft didn’t know what was the greater betrayal: that Sherlock was right, or that he had said it aloud. Maybe that was why he said what he did in return: “And John?”

Sherlock stormed out without giving him any answer, but not before Mycroft glimpsed the fear in his brother’s eyes – and the regret.

He only hoped Sherlock would forgive him, later, after this was over. And that he could forgive Sherlock in turn.

He was fairly certain that regardless of how this all turned out, John would never forgive him for his part in this.

As long as Sherlock survived, and John forgave his brother, Mycroft could live with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published July 31, 2012


End file.
